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YouTube star pleads guilty to boyfriend's death in failed stunt

The Associated Press

Tuesday, December 19, 2017
2:10:27 EST PM

This photo released by the Northwest Regional Corrections Center shows Monalisa Perez. Perez, of Halstad, Minn., has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting her boyfriend Pedro Ruiz III in a videotaped stunt they planned to post on YouTube. The plea agreement calls for Perez to spend six months in jail and 10 years' supervised probation. She told investigators her boyfriend wanted to make a video of her shooting a bullet into a book he was holding against his chest. She says she fired from about a foot away. The couple had a YouTube channel where they posted videos of pranks and stunts. (Northwest Regional Corrections Center via AP)

HALSTAD, Minn. — A Minnesota woman has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting her boyfriend in a videotaped stunt they planned to post on YouTube.

The Star Tribune reports that 20-year-old Monalisa Perez pleaded guilty last week to second-degree manslaughter in the June death of 22-year-old Pedro Ruiz III.

Court records say Perez told investigators that Ruiz wanted to make a video of her shooting a bullet into a book he was holding against his chest. Perez says she fired from about a foot (0.3 metres) away. Ruiz died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

The couple had a YouTube channel where they posted videos of pranks and stunts.

Perez’s plea agreement calls for her to serve six months in jail and 10 years’ supervised probation. She’ll be sentenced in February.